All That Glitters
by Omnicat
Summary: Everybody has their looting moments, right? ...right?


**Title:** All That Glitters

 **Author:** Omnicat

 **Spoilers & Desirable Foreknowledge:** Tensai Okamura & co's _Darker than Black: the Black Contractor_ anime.

 **Warnings:** Theft, thoughts of nudity.

 **Characters & Relationships:** Hei in person, & Pai and x Amber in absentia.

 **Summary:** Everybody has their looting moments, right? ...right? **/ 824 words**

 **Author's Note:** Enjoy!

 **II-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-I-oOo-I-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-II**

 **All That Glitters**

Grau's power had melted both the locks and hinges of the front door and the store's metal shutters to slag. Originally meant to protect against burglars, and more recently, perhaps to give some sense of false security against the phantoms of a war full of nightmares, the front lines of which could jump to and fro for no humanly apparent reason. Now that war had come, and the steel and iron had run down stone and glass like water, pooling in the street in a permanent puddle.

Knife held up and at the ready, Hei stepped over the empty frame and cascade of glass shards that remained of the door. Of all the people who might try to return to an active combat zone to protect their property, a jeweler would be near the top of the list. But this one seemed to have more sense than that. He found no evidence of any disturbance by human hands. Just displays collapsed as the metal nuts and bolts holding them together fell away, heavy locked cabinets melted down to the floor and trapping their contents in their new shape, and cameras reduced to bits of plastic and glass dangling from hollowed-out wires.

The effects of Grau's power were limited to iron. None of the gold or silver in the store had been affected.

Hei took in the glittering mess of riches around him with an oddly dry mouth.

He and Pai weren't exactly strapped for cash. The organization knew they couldn't rely solely on sticks to keep their Contractors in line. A logical assessment of the risks of defection was actually _less_ effective when there was no fear to drive the point home. An employer stingy on the carrots was a dead employer.

So why was he still so tempted?

He would probably never even get the chance to fence anything he took from here. It would only be its weight in lead and secrets, a black mark against his loyalty and reliability waiting to happen, a yet empty promise always tempting him to take risks he could ill afford in order to bring out its potential.

None of the Contractors he'd been deployed into this town with had even looked twice at the place. That should tell him everything he needed to know about how pointless looting would be.

But then again, a treacherous little part of him couldn't help but think, Contractor logic had blind spots you could drive a jeep through. 'Don't bother preparing for the future because it looks too complicated in the present or might in some way jeopardize your current situation' might make sense if you didn't care about anything, but...

As he watched Rouge emerge from the clothing store across the street and give the all clear sign, something in his peripheral vision caught his eye. He whirled, heart thumping in his throat. He could've sworn – but no. _There._

There, amidst the faintly gleaming sea of glass shards, perfectly smooth little puddles of metal, and jewels, was a heavy, opulent diamond necklace with matching accessories. It hung crookedly from a toppled bust in a glass case that had been smashed by a fallen light fixture. A thick, intricate web of gold holding countless white diamonds, some small and round and some square and the size of his thumbnail; and at the center, in a setting crafted to look like a radiant star, a huge, vibrantly amber stone.

It was the exact same color as her eyes. It was breathtaking.

He could already imagine Amber wearing it. Could imagine tracing the weight of it draped across her collarbones, the orange star nestled between the swell of her breasts. Could imagine the flush of her skin and how the diamonds would shine in the light of her reading lamp. He imagined her draped across his bunk wearing nothing but the pale green hair cascading down her back and curling between her legs, and _diamonds_. Perfect, polished white starlight, glowing around her neck, in her ears, at her brow, around her wrists and ankles, on her fingers and belted at her waist, cinched around her biceps and dangling from her hips. Her creamy skin and endless, gorgeous hair and dusky nipples and the diamonds – and then the color of her eyes, of that stone, making his heart stutter and his mind drift. Sealing his fate.

Barely breathing, he stepped through the wreckage, righted the bust, lifted away the jagged remains of the glass case, and gathered up the necklace.

 _This one,_ he thought in a haze. _This one for Amber, and a nest egg for me and Pai._

And then he was frantically stuffing his pack and all his pockets with the rest of the set first, and everything that wasn't melted into place next. Gold and silver and jewels and pearls, until his fingers bled from scrabbling through broken glass and cutting throats and –

And he never even felt guilty.


End file.
